Support Automation in Next Generation Data Centers

The data center industry is going through a lot of changes, with clients demanding more sophisticated features at zero downtime. In this tough competitive environment, it becomes important to leave no stone unturned to ensure 100% customer satisfaction.

One of the areas that need utmost attention is the support function. Many times, the support personnel are working under enormous pressure when they are fixing issues related to hardware and software malfunctions so as to reduce data center downtime. In a recent survey conducted by IDC, there was a clear disconnect revealed between the business and the IT departments when it came to service management. The top two pain points that were identified were that support personnel typically cannot understand the business impact of the problems, and, secondly, that they can’t proactively fix issues before they impact the users.

This entire backlash against the infrastructure support function has led to the next generation of hardware in the data center, with an attempt to provide support automation. Leading market players are now looking at redesigning their physical infrastructure so as to provide for ease in setup, repair and upgrade activities of servers. Many of the newer infrastructures also come built-in with an active diagnostic system that monitors the hardware in the data center and gives real-time information for proactively identifying fault areas. Some of the features of the next generation data centers are agentless management, cloud-embedded capabilities, ergonomic design and legacy support. Support functions are also getting more optimized when it comes to patch and upgrade management and remote monitoring and access to the data center ecosystem is now becoming a reality.

Whether you are aiming for a legacy data center with some degree of manual support function or the new breed of automated data centers, you surely need an expert in the data center industry to guide you on the pros and cons of each option. For the best advice on data centers in the Midwest region, do contact https://lifelinedatacenters.com/ today.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.